When I was a fundy, i couldn't fathom atheists. How could anyone not see the blindingly simple truth of christ?(Reading Lee Strobel didn't help) It was so obvious and true to me I didn't know how anybody could not believe it.

so yes, I think we project our thinking onto others. Since we have figured it out, we think everybody should have.

Obviously now, I can't understand how anyone can be a xtian. I've already become so accustomed to the atheist way of life, of actually wanting evidence and facts, that when I encounter fundies it can be a shock all over again. I mostly feel pity for them, I wouldn't feel guilty if I did ridicule them.

Sadly I don't. Some of my friends have learnt not to bring religion up, becuase it will lead to a argument.Most of the time I'm just not going to give people a free pass on talking rubbish. I really wish I did have a close atheist friend IRL friend.

This weeks really been full of theist influences.It's driving me insane. Everytime I go on facebook, there's someone's status going on bout god or jesus. Almost every program I've watched this week has had something about faith. It's like I'm hypersensitive to noticing these things. But xtians still say they're persecuted,when they're crap is being forced down my throat. I guess my best way of dealing with it is coming here

To quote George Carlin

Big Giant Disclaimer #1:  I'll be happy to tell you how I deal with it, but I can't tell you how you should deal with it.  You've got a lot more anger than I do, and I'm not sure my approach will work for you.  Fundamentalism is all about telling people how they should feel.  I'm a big believer in describing the way things are, and then figuring out how to react to it.

Anyway, as I've become better educated in the last five years, I've become much more confident about being able to pretty much p0wn any theist I talk to.  Ironically, this makes me a lot less likely to bother with them.  In a nutshell, that's my approach most of the time.  If someone says something stupid, I ignore them like people ignore their crazy Aunt Hilda every Thanksgiving when she brings everyone individually wrapped baby socks, whether they have a baby or not.

Frankly, I'm very dismissive of people when they start talking about dead people on sticks.  If someone starts saying something directly to me, I say something like, "Well, I'm sorry to hear you believe something so silly.  Want to talk about something else?"

Consequently, I don't have a lot of theist friends.  The ones I do keep are careful to keep religion out of the conversation, and they've learned to have thick skin if they hear me being completely dismissive of another theist.

If there's such a thing as a "secret" that I have, it's quiet, even speech and as much sympathy as I can muster.  I do feel pity for religious people, and I've learned to let it show when I talk to them.  Even while I'm insulting their beliefs, I'm speaking with compassion.  It's a hard balance to achieve, but when you hit it, it's a homerun.

I can't tell you not to feel guilt, shame, anger, and disgust.  You feel them because that's the way your brain got wired when you were young, and it's just doing what it was programmed to do.  I can tell you that a certain amount of reprogramming is possible, but it takes a long time.  If you have the time, maybe you should buy a textbook about cognitive therapy.  If you have any psych background at all, you ought to be able to learn how to do it on yourself.  In a nutshell, experiences trigger negative emotions which set off a chain of internal events that end negatively.  A cognitive therapist would help you find the root of the negative emotions and train yourself to step back mentally when you recognize a trigger going off.

The thing is, the triggers are not always as obvious as you might think.  You get really angry, disgusted, guilty, etc, when a fundy says something stupid to you.  I'd be willing to bet that it isn't the stupidity in front of you causing the emotional flood.  It's something deeper in your mind.

I'll give you an example.  I dated a girl who absolutely hated to do dishes.  I mean, she would be pissed off all night if she had to do them.  When it got right down to it, all housework set off negative emotions in her.  More negative emotions than were appropriate for a few minutes of easy work.  I broke rule number one and tried to help her figure out why.  (RULE #!:  NEVER,  ever, ever, ever be a psychologist for someone you're dating.  Ever.)

Here's what was happening.  Her mother had been a moderate theist.  She enjoyed drinking and going to parties, and led a rather bohemian lifestyle.  She married a fundy who insisted on having a "traditional housewife," which meant she did all the cooking and cleaning all the time.  Furthermore, even though she didn't want to have children, the women of the church formed a "prayer circle" around her and basically prayed at her until she said that she would do the biblically correct thing and bear a child for her husband.  So, the child, my ex-gf, was understandably the focus of a lot of anger, bitterness, and resentment from her mother.   In truth, her mother didn't love her.  She resented her and loathed the life she had been forced into because of having a baby.  The only time that she ever gave her daughter any praise was when she was doing chores around the house, and only then when they were perfect.  My ex learned early on that love was contingent upon housework.

When she got older, she learned that love could be bought in other ways, and that men could be manipulated.  She learned that because she could always get her father to overrule her mother.  Her mother resented her for it.  Anyway, long story short, she learned eventually that people are only lovable when they do things for people, and if they don't do them right, they won't be loved.  When I asked her to do dishes, there was a  part of her brain that heard a challenge:  "Do this or you are unlovable!!"  This triggered fear and loneliness, and she fell into the old pattern of using manipulation to get her way.

Sadly, she never learned to get over that.  I wish there was a happier ending, but the reality is that some people never get over the programming.  According to Cognitive Therapy, most of the triggers are linked to a false belief about our place in the universe.  My ex wasn't really unlovable, but her behavior made her less lovable, and it was a result of the false belief.  In theory, once you can reason your way past a false core belief, you can give yourself a new habit.  Some therapists recommend a rubber band around the wrist.  When you start feeling the trigger emotion, you pop yourself hard enough to redirect your thoughts for a second.  You quickly go through the mental exercise of reasoning past the emotions and then act the way you know is reasonable -- not the way you feel like acting.  Again, in theory, after months of this, you can bypass the old triggers and form new ones.

So, what I'm suggesting is that if you're having negative emotions that are so strong they hinder you socially, there's probably something else going on.  Fundy stupidity means something to you, and it's probably something about how you view yourself.  If that's true, and you can figure out what it is, you might save yourself a lot of grief.

When people saying that you feel with your heart actually bother me quite a lot, the heart is a hollow muscle that pumps your blood around the body and not some kind of supplementary brain (or other nervecentra that would be required to feel something).

Oh, you assumed I'm human. Easy mistake to make. Actually, I have a black acrid ooze that flows through my veins, and it's controlled through a sort of magnetic servo mechanism. I'm a machine. At least that's what they tell me.